Composite materials are becoming more prevalent in fabrication of aircraft structures. When structural damage occurs to these composite materials, sanding or cutting of plies may be employed to make repairs, and this may be used to achieve individual steps in a stepped scarf joint repair or a continuous transition in a tapered joint repair. However, in using such techniques, it may be difficult to maintain the depth of the scarf, the definition of ply terminations, and/or the consistency of a taper angle over the entire repair area. Further, if thru damage is present, tooling may be required to maintain the contour of the part comprising the repair area, thereby requiring disassembly and removal of other parts not necessarily requiring repair so that the part comprising the repair area may fit in the tooling.